always something so fucked up about poets from the midwest,
like no matter who we want to be all that grain alcohol
from previous generations is just gonna saturate us anyways.
always another cow-tipping joke, always another campfire.
always something a little bit strange, a little bit strained,
something we've got to prove about iowa or indiana—
maybe it goes back to basic america, that westward expansion
which created a whole new breed of nationalists
who broke new earth and their own backs and at this point
just can't be reasoned with, the hurts so sustained.
so born of simple stubborn people and raised inside the fences
and faces all white, the poets start grasping for rhythm,
diction and form, mashing eliot and cummings into don williams
and hoping something interesting comes out of it.
something always a little messed coming out of the midwest,
a little suspiciously skewed as we try to escape the stigma
of beer or amish country or corn fields or something.